Iowa

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Iowa

Find out more about your senators below.

Charles Grassley

Charles Grassley

Charles Ernest "Chuck" Grassley (born September 17, 1933) is the senior United States Senator from Iowa. He is a member of the Republican Party and has served in the Senate since 1981. He was chairman of the Finance Committee from January to June 2001 and from January 2003 to December 2006; currently, he is the committee's Ranking Member.

Born in New Hartford, Iowa to Ruth Corwin and Louis Arthur Grassley, Grassley lived in Iowa during his youth. He graduated from the Iowa State Teachers College in 1955 where he was elected to the prestigious Pi Gamma Mu international honor society and where he received a graduate degree in 1956.

Grassley, a former assembly line worker and farmer, has been involved in politics for much of his adult life. An active runner, Grassley served as a citizen legislator in the Iowa House of Representatives from 1959 until 1974, when he was elected to the United States House of Representatives, of which he was a member from 1975 to 1981, being reelected in 1976 and 1978. He was elected to his Senate seat in 1980, defeating the Democratic incumbent, John Culver, who had only served one term. Grassley was reelected in 1986, 1992, 1998, and 2004.

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Tom Harkin

Tom Harkin

Tom Harkin was born in Cumming, Iowa (pop. 150) on November 19, 1939, the son of an Iowa coal miner father and a Slovenian immigrant mother. He still lives in the house in Cumming where he was born.

After graduating from Dowling High School in Des Moines, he attended Iowa State University on a Navy ROTC scholarship, earning a degree in government and economics.

Following graduation, Tom served in the Navy as a jet pilot on active duty from 1962 to 1967. Later, he continued to fly in the Naval Reserves. He is an active member of American Legion Post 562 in Cumming.

In 1968, Tom married Ruth Raduenz, the daughter of a farmer and a school teacher from Minnesota. Tom and Ruth have two daughters: Amy, born in 1976, and Jenny, born in 1981. Ruth currently serves on the Iowa Board of Regents, responsible for leading Iowa's public universities.

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